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HONORS JOURNALISM: SELECTED WRITINGS THE HONORS COLLEGE – STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK AT ALBANY

BY MATTHEW JOSEPH BOUTIN

MAY 9, 2011

Contained in this writing package are the seven best-crafted and most compelling pieces of writing of my undergraduate career. They have been assembled, expanded and edited under the supervision of my project advisor, Professor Thomas Bass, into this final product. One of the benefits of majoring in Journalism I most appreciate is having the freedom to constantly explore new topics in my writing. This collection reflects the broad scope of the major, as it includes articles covering a diverse range of issues and events, as well as a media study and an autobiographical story. The composition of each of the following works was a miniature intellectual journey for me. I hope that they are as informative and stimulating for those reading them as they were for me to write them.

ARTICLES

Cash-Strapped: City Arts Organizations Join National Battle for Dwindling FundsPages 1 to 9

SUNY Holiday Criteria Misunderstood by Many Students Pages 10 to 14:

“Golden Age” of Capital Region Auto Racing Wanes Pages 15 to 21

Widespread Lack of Accuracy in Civil War ReportingPages 22 to 28

Extreme Claims Blur Philippine Election Automation Debate Pages 29 to 33

Battered University of the Philippines Campus Seeks ReboundPages 34 to 40

Dead Animals Pages 41 to 48

1

Cash-Strapped: City Arts Organizations Join National Battle for Dwindling Funds

November 9, 2010

The “Music Mobile” is probably the most famous vehicle in the city of Albany.

A collage of bright yellow, green, blue and children’s drawings, the battered 14-year-old Dodge

Ram cargo van announces its presence on city streets by blaring folk music from the twin set of

loudspeakers mounted on its hood. The music, recognized by thousands, typically brings scores

of singing kids rushing out to the sidewalks in anticipation of seeing the van. Just as recognizable

to the children is the vehicle’s driver, Ruth Pelham.

Pelham and her colorful van are the heart and soul of one of Albany’s most cherished art

organizations, Music Mobile Inc. An avid songwriter, singer, educator, and unabashed product of

the 1970s, she writes all her own music and is able to recite the lyrics from heart at a moment’s

notice. Pelham has also authored several books to accompany her recorded music.

The aspiring community activist pitched the idea for her traveling music workshop to the Albany

city government in 1977. Her goal was to bring the gift of music to the city’s poorest residents in

the form of free instruction and concerts, and “use the power of music to build, empower, and

heal communities.”

Albany approved her proposal and supplied her with the original Music Mobile van and the

needed start-up funds. Over three decades later, the Music Mobile program has served tens of

thousands of Albany’s most underprivileged children and branched out from music and arts

programming into social services under Pelham’s guidance.

Each week Pelham pilots her van to parks, schools, and community centers around the city

where she conducts different activities for the cities children. Some days she leads them in sing-

a-longs, others showing them how to make tambourines, and most of the time teaches them

songs about staying in school, picking up litter, and showing love to one another.

As of 2010, three different generations of Albany residents have now partaken in Music Mobile

programming. As the Executive Director of the Music Mobile since its inception, Pelham has

become a local celebrity for her work with Albany’s children.

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Stopping into a CVS pharmacy on Central Avenue in the summer of 2010 to make a purchase,

Pelham was immediately recognized by the cash register clerk as the Director of the Music

Mobile, a program he had attended as a child. He began singing one of the songs she had taught

him-and was quickly joined by customers throughout the store who remembered the same lyrics

from their childhood with her.

To help tackle the ever increasing scope of her programming Pelham now rents office space on

Central Avenue and employs as many as eight full-time workers in the summer. She relies on

interns to complete the remaining work that she can’t take care of herself or afford additional

employees to do.

Now, at what is arguably the peak of its popularity, Music Mobil Inc. is going to have some of

the gas taken out of its engine this coming fiscal year.

Like dozens of other arts programs in Albany, Pelham’s brainchild is about to lose an important

grant awarded annually by the city government. For 25 years Albany has annually divided

$350,000 amongst arts organizations in the city, an allotment which Mayor Gerald Jennings has

proposed to eliminate from the 2011 city budget.

This cut is just one of many in a budget which also raises property taxes 7.5% and fires 155 city

employees in order to close a looming $23 million budget deficit.

Historically, the arts in Albany have enjoyed strong support in City Hall. Mayor Jennings and a

number of Common Council members have long advocated for public art as a means of

improving the standard of living in the city.

Jennings’ administration has also tried to use the arts, such as the summertime “Alive at Five”

concert series held in the Corning Preserve riverfront park, to draw visitors and businesses within

the city boundaries as a means of raising revenue though sales taxes.

"These organizations are vital to our city's overall cultural and economic vibrancy and I am very

pleased that in collaboration with the Albany Local Development Corporation, we are able to

continue our financial commitment to them," Mayor Jennings said about the 32 grant recipients

in a 2010 interview with the Albany Times-Union.

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Until this coming year grant recipients have been determined by the city Arts Commission and

dispensed through the Albany Local Development Corporation. For the 2010 fiscal year, the

grant money was divided between 32 different organizations.

The largest five shares went to the Capital Repertory Theatre with $60,000, Park Playhouse and

Palace Theatre with $55,000 apiece, the Albany Institute of History of Art with $53,000 and the

Albany Symphony Orchestra with $39,000.

The remaining $88,000 was divided between 27 other organizations, many of which, despite

their smaller budgets and grants, are just as well known and established as their larger

counterparts.

The 18th century South End mansion known as Historic Cherry Hill, which is in the process of

having its infrastructure restored, received a $1,000 grant. The downtown Albany Civic Theatre,

which is known for its youth theatre training program and year-round performances, received a

$7,000 grant. Pelham’s Music Mobile Inc. received a grant for $8,000.

In order to be eligible for the funding, the applicants need to be non-profit organizations, willing

to donate a service to both the city of Albany and one of its public schools, and able to submit a

written report of the group’s activities at the end of the fiscal year.

Despite its generous track record with the arts, the Mayor’s office insists it cannot provide the

funding this coming year. Jennings’ budget also completely eliminated funding for summer work

programs, closed the South End public baths and the St. Vincent’s Community Center, and

chopped funds for long-standing city events like Tulip Fest by half.

The Budget Director for the Mayor’s Office, Christopher Hearley, has insisted that the proposed

cuts are all necessary, and their widespread nature was proof that the Mayor did not single out

the arts for elimination.

“We looked at the entire budget and, with the goal of keeping the tax increase as low as possible,

we had to prioritize our spending. Public safety is our number one priority,” said Hearley, noting

that the ongoing economic recession has hit city and town budgets across the country.

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For the 2011 fiscal year $50 million has been earmarked for the Police Department and $30

million for the Fire Department according to Hearley. These sums, which constitute half of the

proposed $159.9 million budget, will still leave those two departments understaffed.

Arts leaders have not expressed any anger about the loss of their grants- instead most express and

understanding of the city’s financial woes and gratitude for the assistance it has lent them in the

past. Pelham hasn’t detected anything adversarial between the city and its arts community as a

result of the difficult cuts, and describes a “mutual affection” between the two groups.

“We’ve always had a very supportive relationship with the city of Albany,” she said. They [in

city government] realize the impact arts programs have on the standard of living in the city.

The Music Mobile Inc. got its start in 1977 with city and Federal assistance. Pelham credits the

Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA), a Federal jobs program started in 1973

and administered locally by the city of Albany, as giving her the initial resources to begin her

program.

The Music Mobil continued to grow with the assistance of staff and funds from the city

Recreation Department and Albany Community Development Agency block grants. The city

even supplied Pelham with the original Music Mobile’s original Dodge van.

State and county grants, donations from individuals and businesses also began flowing to the

program. Later, the $8,000 annual arts became an important component of the Music Mobile’s

current $140,000 annual budget.

“Direct support from the city has been crucial and immensely appreciated,” confirms Pelham.

A larger and equally appreciative recipient of arts money has been The Albany Institute of

History and Art.

They’ve [the city of Albany] been fantastic to us in the past says Steve Ricci, Director of Public

Relations and Marketing for the Institute.

“It’s hard to point fingers at the city because of these cuts. They have to make some hard

choices,” acknowledges Ricci. “But it’s also important to recognize the value of the arts. They

make the city what it is.”

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The Institute, which is located on Washington Avenue overlooking the Arbor Hill and North End

neighborhoods of the city, is, unbeknownst to many in the city, the second oldest museum in the

United States.

“It was founded in 1791-when George Washington was still President,” explained Ricci. “The

museum is an incredible part of Albany’s history.”

The Institute has the stated goal of preserving the art and history of the Upper Hudson and

Albany region. Its exhibits include displays of 19th century American sculptures, paintings by the

renowned Hudson River School of art, and colonial era artifacts.

Ironically, given the Museum’s emphasis on Upstate New York, the best-known exhibit may be

the Ancient Egypt Gallery. This includes a display of two human mummies, and one of a dog,

imported from Egypt in 1958. The “Albany mummies,” as they have become known, are a

favorite display for student visitors according to Ricci.

The museum is staffed with 18 full time employees and a variable number of additional part time

workers. Operations and staff are maintained with an annual operating budget of $2 million.

The $53,000 grant provided by the city constitutes less than 3% of the overall museum budget,

but is nonetheless a crucial piece of a fragile budget held together by twelve different grants

according to Ricci.

“In this current economic climate every penny counts because it’s very hard to raise money.

That $53,000, that’s the equivalent of the salary of one of our employees,” he said

“This lose was tough to take. We count on this money every year.”

The Institute is not acting prematurely on the assumption that the funds are lost, but is holding

out hope that the cuts may be reversed before the budget becomes law according to Ricci.

However, Albany’s “strong-mayor” form of government makes it unlikely that the Mayor’s

budget will be altered. The city legislature, or Common Council, can vote on the budget, but a

two-thirds majority is needed to make any changes. If no changes are made by the Common

Council the budget automatically goes into effect on November 30.

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Councilman Calsolaro, who represents the First Ward located in the South End of Albany, and

Councilwoman Leah Golby of the midtown-based Tenth Ward, don’t see much chance of the

arts grants being restored by the Common Council. In fact, neither Council member would

themselves vote to replace the grant allotment into the budget.

Calsolaro, who has been at odds with the Mayor during past budget debates, agrees with

Jennings’ decision to eliminate the arts funding. The Councilman is quick to point out that, in

addition to having become an unaffordable luxury, the grants no longer serve their intended

purpose.

“These grants weren’t set up to be permanent. They were just supposed to be start up money

until these organizations could find other sustaining sources of revenue, but they came to depend

on them,” said Calsolaro.

Calsolaro, who serves of the Advisory Board of the grant recipient Historic Cherry Hill, said he

takes no pleasure in cutting the funding so abruptly.

“I hate to see them [the grants] go like this. I wish we had been able to wean the programs off the

grant money gradually.”

Like Calsolaro, Golby has a background in the city arts scene. She spent years as a grant

application writing for the Albany Symphony Orchestra, where she saw firsthand the tight

budgets that many art organizations are forced to operate on

“When the Symphony was on a really tight operating budget and we needed money, I used to

have the call the Development Corporation daily to get updates as to when the grant money

would be released,” said Golby.

Despite her acknowledgement that arts organizations are typically “severely underfunded.”

Golby insisted that the city needed to prioritize and focus spending.

“Art grants are not strategic. We need to concentrate on basic services, keeping the streets clean,

and policing the streets in order to draw people and businesses back to Albany. Then maybe we

could afford money for arts again,” said Golby.

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While direct funding is out of the question in her mind, the Councilwoman does feel the city can

assist the arts organizations to leverage money through other sources. For example, she feels the

Music Mobile, which she describes as “very important programming”, should be eligible for

social service money in addition to arts funds.

Should the final version of the Albany 2011 budget pass without the restoration of the grants as

Calsolaro and Golby anticipate, the former recipients will join scores of other arts organizations

across the nation that have suffered cuts at the hands of deficit-swamped state and local

governments hit hard by the economic recession.

In Dallas, Texas the proposed 2011 budget slashes funding for its Office of Cultural Affairs by

55%, a cut which comes on the heels of a 34% reduction in 2009. The 50,000 cultural and arts

events funded fully or partially by the Office of Cultural Affairs attracted 5.5 million people in

2009 according to D Magazine, a Dallas based lifestyle publication.

The Nevada Arts Council saw its funding chopped from $2.8 million in 2008 to $1.3 million in

2010. Plans for more cuts are being proposed in the state legislature according to The Nevada

Sagebush, a Reno based newspaper.

The largest statewide reduction in art funding in the United States occurred in Michigan in 2009,

when $5 million of its $7 million allotment for arts funding, or 80% was eliminated. This made

Michigan the largest defunder of the arts in the United States, followed by Florida with 65% and

Illinois with 53% according to Michigan Public Radio.

The Albany arts organizations will have to compete with these art organizations, and scores of

others like them across the country, for remaining funding.

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency created by the federal

government in 1965 to support and promote the arts in the United States. It is the largest funder

of arts in the country, having doled out $128,000 grants totaling over $4 billion since its creation.

Despite the NEA’s substantial resources, statistics and records kept by the agency show it has

less to offer needy arts organizations during this recession than in past decades. The NEA’s

budget was chopped by nearly half in the 1990s, going from a high of $176 million in 1993 to

$98 million in 2000, a reduction it has yet to fully recover from.

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At the same time, the number of applicants for NEA grants has risen steadily. 2,599 grant

requests were submitted in 2000. By 2008 the number of grant applicants had leapt to 4,803.

In 2010 there were 5,691 grant applications, an increase of 888 from just two years earlier and

over twice the total number submitted in 2000. The increases in funding the NEA has received

over that time period have not kept pace with the number of new of applicants according to

Jamie Bennet, the Director of Public Affairs for the NEA.

The New York Council for the Humanities is facing similar pressure. Founded in 1975 to support

the humanities in New York with grants and cultural programming, the Foundation’ has given

millions of dollars to non-profit organizations across the state.

In 2007 the Foundation provided nearly $445,000 to cultural, artistic, and historic projects across

the state, including a $2,500 education grant and the services of two historians of Hudson Valley

history to the Albany Institute of History and Art and a $2,500 gift to the State University of

New York at Albany.

In 2010 the Foundation channeled 485,000 into programs across the state, including another

$2,190 grant for the Albany Institute of History and Art and $2,250 for Historic Cherry Hill.

However, Council officials fear its currently healthy cash flow, which increased $40,000

between 2007 and 2010, can’t remain so strong much longer.

Executive Director Sara Ogger notes that because the Council is predominantly funded by

federal and state resources, it is susceptible to the same cuts that have stricken organizations in

Albany and across the country. Her and her colleagues are anticipating that such cuts will soon

extend to the Council as well.

“All of our programs are going to come under pressure from increased applicants and decreased

funding,” said Ogger.

“We are bracing for the worst and we are probably going to have to make some cuts.”

Like the NEA, the Foundation has already seen its funds stretched thin by a marked increase in

the number of grant applicants it has received, an increase Ogger attributes directly to the

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evaporation of alternate sources of funding across the country driving larger numbers of art

organizations to fewer sources of funding.

With increased competition for smaller amounts of money, area organizations will have to get

creative with their fundraising efforts if they hope to remain financially solvent.

The leaders of the Albany Institute of History and Art are already trying to identify new possible

corporate donors as a result of their inability to persuade private donors to contribute greater

sums during the current economic recession according to Ricci.

To help replace the impending loss of the Music Mobile’s $8,000 grant and her ailing van,

Pelham is also brainstorming new sources of revenue, mindful that new grant money is not likely

to be easily forthcoming.

So far she has come up with a fundraiser called “Running On Your Empties,” effectively a city-

wide bottle drive targeting local businesses and colleges which produce large numbers of

refundable beverage containers. The fundraiser is in its early stages, and Pelham anticipates it

will be at least another month before it goes into operation.

Regardless of how the bottle fundraising goes, Pelham has no plans to put the Music Mobile on

blocks anytime soon.

“I am worried that this cut to our funding could cause a decrease in our programming, she said.

“But we are not going to be stopped”

10

SUNY Holiday Criteria Misunderstood by Many Students

September 22, 2010

This fall semester the State University of New York at Albany suspended classes from

September 8-10, a hiatus which left most students happy with the free time and many clueless as

to the occasion.

‘Some sorta Jewish holidays I think- not sure which one. I just know I enjoy the days off”

responded senior Joseph Stepansky when asked why classes were cancelled.

“We get the days off for Rosh Hashanah,” elaborated senior Trisha Tolentino when faced with

the same inquiry.

Like many students, Stepansky and Tolentino misidentify the suspended classes as University

recognition of the Jewish holiday. Across the student body a similar misperception exists that the

roughly five-week “Winter Break” in December and January is in celebration of the Christian

holiday of Christmas and the weeklong “Spring Break” in April is for Christian Easter and

Jewish Passover.

This misperception has led to charges against the University of granting preferred status toward

Christian and Jewish holidays and shafting Muslim ones. SUNY at Albany has suspended classes

during a Muslim holiday only once - during Eid al-Fitr in 2005.

In actuality, State University of New York (SUNY) policy towards religious holidays is driven

by pragmatism and affords students of all religions the ability to celebrate holy occasions

important to them.

SUNY at Albany, like all other SUNY schools, is officially forbidden by state law from

commemorating religious holidays according to Media Relations Director Karl Luntta.

Commemoration would include declaring a University-wide holiday for one of a particular

religion, a violation of the constitutional separation of Church and state.

SUNY schools are permitted to suspend classes in anticipation of high levels of absenteeism or

in recognition of state or national holidays, such as Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Prominent

religious holidays typically result in high levels of absenteeism, so classes are often cancelled

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around those days. The fall 2010 cancellation of classes during Rosh Hashanah is a prime

example of this.

Holiday scheduling is handled by the University Senate, a legislative body composed of school

faculty and staff. Student concerns and the make-up of the University are taken into

consideration when crafting the academic calendar.

“There is a lot of debate and discussion that goes into these decisions,” Luntta said.

State law allows for individual students to request off their most sacred religious occasions

without repercussions. The procedures for this are detailed in the New York Education Law,

section 244-A, which mandates that teachers and administrators cooperate with students to

reschedule tests and exempt them from class on such dates.

Bu this accommodation is deemed insufficient by some Muslims and non-Muslims alike who see

suspension of classes as proper treatment for such occasions.

“I believe the current calendar isn't that fair” argues Amira Alkhatib, spokesperson for the

University’s Muslim Student Association (MSA).

“If Christianity and Judaism are represented, why not complete the monotheistic trend and add

Islamic holidays? After all, of all three, Islam is the most widely practiced religion in the world.”

Shannon Cohen, a junior and devout Jew, agrees with Alkhatib that the calendar isn’t reasonable

and that the University should suspend classes during some Muslim holidays.

Cohen points out that few Jews are devout in their observance of holidays like Rosh Hashanah,

and simply see the days-off as an opportunity to relax. Through personal experience she has

found that putting section 244-A to use is difficult and believes it to be a poor substitute for a

university-wide holiday.

Typically Muslim holidays fall far short of creating the conditions that demand a suspension of

classes.

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Absenteeism is considered high enough to cancel classes “if it is enough to disrupt the normal

flow of academic life,” explains Luntta. He also notes that this determination “is not an exact

science” because the University does not collect religious data on students. However, all

available evidence suggests that there are vastly more Christian and Jewish students than Muslim

attending SUNY at Albany.

Christians certainly compose a solid majority of the student body, as they do across the nation as

a whole. Jewish students compose a substantial minority. In fact, SUNY at Albany is located in

the most heavily Jewish state and likely has one of the largest Jewish enrollments of any

university in the nation. The school also employees a large number of Jewish professors who

might request time off as result of religious holidays

Of the school’s 13,100 undergraduates, 3,500 (26%) are estimated to be Jewish according to

UAlbany Hillel, a prominent Jewish organization on campus. Hillel also claims that 1,500 (30%)

of the school’s 4,900 graduate students are Jewish. Even if this figures are overestimates, the

Jewish student body is considerable, enough so for its absence to be deemed disruptive to the

normal operation of the school.

In sharp contrast, Muslims constitute a tiny portion of the student body. Ashraf Khater, Secretary

of the MSA, estimates the number of practicing Muslims enrolled in the low hundreds, and a

number more who are non-practicing. Thus, the absenteeism created by this small population has

repeatedly been deemed non-disruptive to school operations.

At the SUNY College at Geneseo, Jewish students find themselves in the same position as

Muslims do at SUNY at Albany because they constitute such a small percentage of the student

body. Of SUNY at Geneseo’s 4,950 undergraduate students, about 300 (6%) are Jewish

according to Geneseo Associate Dean Kerry McKeever. As a result, classes are not suspended

during Jewish holidays.

“Were we to honor all religious holidays, we would fall into a morass of absenteeism and the

difficulties that attend this” McKeever said in support of the Geneseo policy.

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McKeever feels that the 244-A section of the Education Law is an appropriate option for

students who need to miss school in observance of a holiday.

“Our policy is that we honor the individual requests of all students of all denominations” said

McKeever.

“Basically, then, we believe that each faith has one or two holy days that are considered

absolutely sacred, and we endeavor to attend to the needs of the students on that basis. Students,

and staff, and faculty need to be reasonable in this negotiation, and we all try to be.”

This option is even more sensible for Muslim students when the practical difficulties of

scheduling Islamic holidays are taken into account. Religious dates on the Christian, or

Gregorian, calendar remain very constant over time. Christmas, for example, always falls on

December 25. Both the Jewish and Muslim religions operate on lunisolar calendars, which cause

the dates of religious holidays to shift from year to year.

What makes Jewish holidays more practical to schedule is that they shift less dramatically then

Muslim ones according to Rabbi Mendel, Director of the Shabbos House Rohr Chabad Jewish

Student Center. He notes that Rosh Hashanah changes dates yearly but almost always falls in

September.

Eid al-Adha, a holiday many Muslim students would prefer to have off, will fluctuate between

September, October, and November over the coming five academic years. Furthermore, the

Muslim Sunni and Shia sects use slightly different calendars, which can cause divergence in the

holidays of the two groups and would further complicate the academic calendar

Khater doesn’t find the current academic calendar to be unfair to Muslims when considering

their small population and the difficulty of accommodating Islamic holidays. He has invoked

section 244-A with success in the past and found teachers and faculty accommodating to his

religious needs.

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He still hopes that as the Muslim community grows on campus they will eventually gain enough

clout, like the Jewish religious minority, to have class suspensions scheduled over Islamic

holidays.

The MSA isn’t waiting long for that time to come. Undeterred by the impracticality of

suspending classes during Muslim holiday, the group plans to push the University Senate to

suspend classes for Eid al-Adha in 2011. Khater is confident the proposal will make headway.

“More days off from school would be great, right?” he asked with a laugh.

15

“Golden Age” of Capital Region Car Racing Wanes

December 6, 2010

It was the last turn of the last lap.

Driver Clem Da Biere gripped the steering wheel of race car 312 as he sped towards the finish

line.

Da Biere was dead last – fourth in a race of four cars. It was his first time racing on an oval track,

and his poor placing wasn’t bothering him a bit. In fact, he was having the time of his life.

Bob Novak, the owner of the car stood in the race track pits. Novak was proud to see his car

zooming around the track. He was watching years of dreams and work come to fruition.

Then, with seconds to go before crossing the finish line, the right back wheel fell off. The bolts

holding it to the axel had completely sheared off.

A week earlier, one of Novak’s fellow high school students had introduced him to his 24-year-

old brother, Clem, in the parking lot of Amsterdam High. Novak was only 16 - too young to

drive - but already owned his own race car. Word had gotten around that he needed a driver.

“This guy by the name of Bobbie Novak comes over and says- I got a stock car. You wanna

drive it?” recalls Da Biere. The two life-long Amsterdam residents quickly brokered a deal to

have Da Biere, already an accomplished drag racer, get behind the wheel of Novak’s car and try

his luck at stock car racing.

“Everything was new to us. We didn’t know about side bite or wedge or stagger.” explains Da

Biere, referring to some basic principles of oval racing.

“All Bob knew was that I used to blister the highways drag racing,”

Novak laughs in agreement. “We didn’t know anything. But we knew we wanted to race.”

A week after agreeing to join forces at the high school, May 8, 1965, they attached Novak’s

stockcar to Da Biere’s 1964 Dodge Rambler and left for Lebanon Valley Speedway, 60 miles to

the east across the Hudson River.

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The entered in a “Special Class” race designated for amateur racers. They would face off against

just three other drivers, including two rising stars in the local racing scene equipped with better

cars and more experience, Thomas Corellis and Al “King” Kessler.

“We were really outclassed,” acknowledges Novak.

But with only three wheels on the car Da Biere handled himself like a pro, piloting his injured

vehicle through the finish line behind the others.

Their winnings for the night were $8, handed to them in an envelope by future Lebanon Valley

Speedway owner Howard Commander along with an invitation to return and race again.

Novak and Da Biere where thrilled – they had gotten the opportunity to participate in one of the

Capital Regions biggest spectator sport at the peak of its popularity.

The 1950s and 1960s were a “Golden Age” for stockcar racing the in the United States northeast,

an era of unprecedented - and since unrivaled - fan interest and local participation.

Howard Commander, who took over and retains the family business of Lebanon Valley

Speedway, notes that the popularity of racing was fueled in part by the absence of modern forms

of entertainment.

Television sets, which many families still didn’t own in the 1950s, lacked color and typically

offered only three channels. Video games didn’t exist, and malls such as Colonie Center were

only just being built.

However, the races were a powerful draw in their own right. The growing popularity of the sport

spawned the opening of Empire Raceways in Menands in 1947, south Troy’s Pine Bowl

Speedway in 1948, Lebanon Valley Speedway in 1953, Albany’s Victoria Speedway in 1960,

and Malta’s Albany-Saratoga Speedway in 1965.

The area’s best-known track was in the otherwise sleepy town of Fonda, New York. Fonda

Speedway is the self-described “Track of Champions, “ a name which it earned the rights to in

1955, when Fonda racer Pete Corey won the “Race of Champions” at Langehorn Speedway in

Pennslyvania - the biggest of his roughly 250 feature victories.

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Numerous smaller tracks, their names since forgotten by all but those who frequented them, were

carved out of farmer’s fields and woods around the Capital Region.

Races in the 1950s and following two decades rarely failed to draw a crowd, and Fonda

Speedway was even more packed than rival tracks. Often filling to the point of standing room

only, fans lined up at the gates four hours before a race even began.

They crowds were full of energy and always anxious for the race to start, often watching for race

cars to arrive on trailers from the south side of the Mohawk River over a bridge adjacent to the

track.

“When the race cars were towed across the bridge to Fonda, the crowd would boo or cheer

depending on how they felt about their drivers. That’s how eager people were for the races,”

recalls Novak.

When the races began, crowds roared with approval as the cars sent clouds of dust into the air

and barreled around the dirt track. The excitement didn’t stop until late in the night.

The stars of the races were the drivers, and no one captured the essence of these local celebrities

better than photographer John Grady.

He served as the official track photographer at Albany-Saratoga Speedway from 1965 to 1975,

and captured snapshots at other tracks across the Northeast, eventually amassing thousands of

photographs.

There were wealthy drivers who could afford top-notch cars, but for the most part they were men

of modest means who built their cars on the cheap, rounding up parts from junk yards and

garages. Their cars lacked the modern convenience of power steering, and shoddy brakes were

common.

Grady’s pictures reveal the drivers often as gruff, unpolished, solid men. More often than not

they are pictured puffing on a cigarette or cigar- even while accepting a trophy.

They raced their cars in the same clothes and blue jumpsuits they worked in – and sometimes

died that way.

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Safety features in the often homemade stockcars were few and often neglected. While exact

records weren’t kept, Novak says injuries were far more in those decades than in the present.

Many cars contained only lap seatbelts which allowed the driver to be jolted forward and hit their

face on the steering wheel in a collision. Many lost teeth as a result.

Sometimes the seatbelts were so ineffective that many drivers didn’t bother to use them at all.

Grady recalls a popular saying about seatbelts amongst the drivers.

“Wear ‘em lose so you can kiss your ass goodbye.”

In worse accidents it was not rare for drivers to lose limbs. Pete Corey lost his leg in a crash at

Fonda in 1959. Trying to make the most out of his injury, Corey installed a transistor radio and a

compartment for a pistol into his prosthetic leg and continued to race, continuing his winning

ways for decades with the help of a specially installed hand brake in his cars.

For some drivers, racing would be last thing they ever did. Death at area race tracks was not

rare. Inadequate leather helmets, nicknamed “widow makers,” often failed to prevent head

injuries which often proved fatal.

In 1955, high-profile racer Otis Eaton died in a wreck at Fonda, and 1965 saw the deaths of

Louis Smith and Pepper Eastman. Other, lesser known drivers perished as well.

Even fans weren’t immune from danger. One week after Eaton’s death a tire flew off a car at

Fonda, striking and killing a bystander leaning over a fence to see the race.

“In the early 70s it seemed like guys were getting taken out of Fonda in an ambulance every

week,” says Novak.

“No one thought about this stuff with safety. It’s something you loved so much you were willing

to risk your neck.”

Howard Commander, the owner and operator of Lebanon Valley Speedway says he understands

why drivers were, and continue to be, willing to take the risks of racing.

“The desire to race is as addicting as any other activity. The rush one gets from racing other cars

is phenomenal. It’s better than drugs. Not that I’ve done drugs,” says Commander.

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Drivers like Pete Corey became local heroes for their daring and skill, inspiring young men like

Da Biere and Novak to watch and strive to participate in racing.

Novak chose for himself an unorthodox racing model - a surly Vermonter by the name of “Black

Jack” Dubrul. Dubrul never placed well in his less than two years of racing, but impressed

Novak with his underdog status, black car, black attire, and his arrival at the track in a Corvette

bearing girls from the nightclub he owned in Burlington

It wasn’t until July of 1961 that Novak saw his first race when his older sister Barbara and her

boyfriend Joseph took him to Fonda Speedway. He still recalls the crowds and zooming cars

vividly to this day.

Novak’s other passion, baseball, was quickly forgotten. In 1962 he went to Fonda Speedway

every week of the racing season.

“I just feel in love with it. I knew right then I wanted to drive a race car,” says Novak.

Achieving that goal would be no small feat.

Novak worked as a paper boy, hawking copies of the Amsterdam Evening Recorder to each of

his 60 customers for 50 cents a week. After giving the newspaper its cut of the money, Novak’s

profit margin was rarely more than $10 a week. Still he managed to save.

In March of 1965 Novak learned from a classmate that a local shop owner had a stockcar for

sale. He jumped at the opportunity, paying $40 for his first set of wheels.

His purchase was a 1953 Chevy. It had already raced at Victoria Speedway and was ready to run

again. However, Novak wanted to make some slight alterations.

Using a brush he painted the car jet black with Rustoleum paint - homage to Dubrul’s color of

choice - making it the first of many black cars he would own. It was ready for its May 8 race at

Lebanon Valley.

Novak himself didn’t pilot a race car around an oval track until 1972, when he took part in

warm-ups at Albany-Saratoga Speedway. He drove at Fonda in 1973 and, after a hiatus, made his

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best finish- eight out of 56 cars in a 100 lap race- at Lebanon Valley in 1988. He ran a couple

different cars, and his girlfriend Jeanne Wilson helped build and maintain them.

His last race was in 1991, when he got behind the wheel of a pink 1970 Chevy Chevelle adorned

with the names of rock groups Megadeth and Slayer owned by his younger racing partners.

Da Biere was introduced to racing by his father, who worked for Pepsi-Cola Company delivering

soda in the Capital Region. One of his delivery stops was Fonda Speedway, where he started

getting passes to the races. His father first brought him there in 1953 and he became an instant

fan. Da Biere has returned every year for the last 57 years.

“As a kid I always said I would race at Fonda Speedway. Of course all the kids said that,”

remembers Da Biere.

However, Da Biere went from being a spectator to participant in racing in the South Side of

Amsterdam in the summer of 1954. A nearby garage had its own stock car, and Da Biere loved

to stop by and look at it.

The garage owner, noting the interest shown by Da Biere, invited him to help take care of the

stock car.

“Well you better learn to work on this thing,” the owner said motioning to the car.

“Sure,” replied Da Biere, excited at the prospect of being involved with a stock car.

“You can start by cleaning the mud off of it,” said the owner.

Next Sunday after church Da Biere was at the garage and ready to work. His expertise would

eventually extend far beyond cleaning hubcaps- he became mechanically savvy and used this

expertise to spur his racing career, which has included victories at Fonda Speedway, a stint as the

official Speedway clown, and induction into the Fonda Speedway Hall of Fame.

Since the 1970s the popularity of car racing in the Capital Region of New York has waned from

its peak, a trend confirmed by Howard Commander.

“It’s still great family entertainment. Crowds, especially here at Lebanon Valley, are still good.”

says Commander.

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“But in that 20 year period from the mid-50s to mid-70s crowds were phenomenal.”

Many of his rival tracks haven’t been as fortunate.

Victoria Speedway was closed and converted into equestrian training facility in 1966. Empire

Raceways was bulldozed in 1963 and replaced with a department store. Pine Bowl saw its last

races in 1964. Smaller tracks slowly melted back into the fields and woods from which they were

hewn.

Fonda Speedway has also struggled to draw spectators on the same scale as Lebanon Valley.

Frank Fiden, a disciple of Fonda racer “Jumpin Jack” Johnson, echoes Da Biere and Novak in

noting that many of the draws of Golden Age racing have disappeared.

Potential local racers have been pushed from the sport by the vastly increased cost of cars.

Modern stock cars, which come complete with safety features that have dramatically reduced the

danger of the sports Golden Age, are rarely homemade. Instead they are built at factories and

cost tens of thousands of dollars, a far cry from the $40 car bought by Novak in 1965.

Also, the popular generation of drivers who drew Da Biere and Novak to race and Fiden to the

bleachers to watch have largely retired or passed away. Their replacements - traveling, wealthier

drivers able to pay their way into the sport - are rarely seen outside their cars or trailers and lack

the individual appeal that made older, more accessible drivers the stars they were.

Jack Johnson, 65, had continued racing with great success until he was recently diagnosed with

cancer. He now plans to ease out of the sport.

“Its just not the same without him at the track,” says Fiden, who has started going to Fonda

Speedway less frequently then he used to.

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Widespread Lack of Accuracy in Civil War Reporting

April 14, 2009

The American Civil War broke out between the Northern states of the Union and the newly

seceded Southern states of the Confederacy on April 12, 1861. Realizing that the war would be

one of the defining events in the young nation’s history, aspiring war reporters from the Union

and the Confederacy swiftly flocked to the staging points of the opposing armies, anxious to

make names for themselves as war correspondents. The North alone sent about 500 reporters to

the war zone, with the New York Herald, Times and Tribune contributing roughly 100 of them.

Countless sketch artists, still far more common and practical than photographers like Matthew

Brady, hurried to the front to recreate battle scenes for illustrated publications such as Harper’s

Weekly Magazine.

The recent invention of the telegraph allowed these eager reporters to transmit accounts of army

movements and battles back to Northern and Southern cities with unprecedented speed, making

it possible for articles to be printed on a next-day basis. While the news was more quickly

printed and readily available than ever before (thanks to the advent of cheap “penny papers”), the

quality of reporting on military matters was often poor during the Civil War. (Knightley 44-66)

Examination of the newspaper coverage for the battles of Bull Run (July 21, 1861), Shiloh (April

6-7, 1862), Vicksburg (May 18-July 4, 1863) and Gettysburg (July 1-3, 1863) reveal that

newspaper coverage by Northern and Southern newspapers alike was highly imperfect.

The newspapers examined were chosen partly out of necessity and partly for their value.

Archives of Southern newspapers are very hard to come by, as most of the publications have

been bought or closed many years ago. Records of the Southern Charleston Daily Courier,

Savannah Republican, and information about the Confederate Press Association were selected

out of the need to find Confederate newspaper coverage of any kind. Northern newspapers were

better archived in the years since the Civil War. This paper uses the New York Times and

Harpers Weekly as papers representing the coverage of the North because they were prominent

and have been well archived. This paper focuses strictly on the accuracy of the text pertaining to

the chosen battles the day(s) after the battle took place (news about a battle was not printed for at

least a day after it took place). Maps and pictures could have been analyzed had they been

23

available, but the Southern papers were typically devoid of images. The battles selected for this

research were all major clashes which generated ample coverage to be examined. Two battles,

Bull Run and Shiloh, were selected to see what coverage was like early in the war, and

Gettysburg and Vicksburg were chosen to see if accuracy had changed later in the war. The

articles from these respective issues were examined and the facts within them compared to

accepted historical accounts to determine the accuracy of the reporting.

In July of 1861, the Union army under General Irvin McDowell marched from its assembly point

around Washington D.C. to meet the Confederate army under Generals P. G. T. Beauregard and

Joseph E. Johnson at their encampment in northern Virginia along Bull Run Creek. With the first

opportunity for revenge looming after the fall of Fort Sumter to the Southerners, Northerners

watched events unfold in Virginia with great anticipation. Large groups of reporters, politicians,

dignitaries, and hanger-ons actually followed the Union army hoping to witness a historic victory

and enjoy a picnic at the same time. (NATIONAL PARK SERVICE 1) Those who could not be at the

battle no doubt eagerly anticipated newspaper reports on the outcome.

On July 22, the New York Times blazoned on its front page the headline: “Victory at Bull’s Run-

Sumter avenged.” The Times article claimed a total victory for Union forces over the

Confederate army in northern Virginia the previous day. The article described the Northerners as

“…not only driving the enemy from their formidable positions, but seizing all their guns and

equipment…” (THE NEW YORK TIMES) In fact, Bull Run was an undisputed defeat for Northern

arms. The reality was that by nightfall of July 21, the routed Union army, mixed with terrified

onlookers, was streaming back towards its forward base at Centreville in disorder. The

Confederate army remained firmly in control of the battlefield. (NATIONAL PARK SERVICE 1)

Confederate coverage of this battle could not be found. I include Northern Bull Run coverage

because of the similarity between the mistake made by the New York Times and the following

Southern newspaper, the Charleston Daily Courier, at the battle of Shiloh.

The western Tennessee battle of Shiloh, while not huge in comparison to later battles in the war,

was the largest battle in American history when fought. The battle took place from April 6-7,

1862 when the Confederate army under Generals P. G. T. Beauregard and Albert Sidney Johnson

moved to counter the advance of the Union armies of Generals Ulysses S. Grant and Don Carlos

Buell across Tennessee. (NATIONAL PARK SERVICE 2) In its April 8 edition a South Carolina

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paper, The Charleston Daily Courier, made the same grievous mistake as the New York Times

before it, incorrectly reporting the outcome of the battle at Shiloh. The paper cited an official

dispatch from Beauregard to the Confederate War Office in Richmond Virginia to declare in its

main headline “The Victory Complete.” In addition to the erroneous dispatch from Beauregard,

the Courier reprinted a dispatch from the Savannah Republican which described the Northern

soldiers as being “in full retreat” and the entire Union army as being in danger of being captured.

In a moment of hubris the correspondent declared that the battle should be considered a “second

Manassas [the Southern name for the battle of Bull Run]” for Confederate forces. (THE

MITCHELL ARCHIVES) It quickly became obvious that these reports and predictions were

incorrect. The Confederate army was successful in driving back the Union army on April 6, but

was not on the verge of capturing the entire force. By nightfall Grant had secured a defensive

line and halted the Southern advance. On April 7 Grant was massively reinforced by the

divisions of Buell and proceeded to drive the badly outnumbered Confederates from the

battlefield completely. (NATIONAL PARK SERVICE 2)

The New York Times provided coverage of mixed quality on Shiloh (which it referred to as the

battle of Pittsburg or Pittsburg Landing). On April 8 the paper simply reprinted dispatches from

the Union commander of the western theater of the war, General Henry Halleck. His extremely

brief report described the battle as an unmitigated victory, not mentioning the near defeat of

Union forces on April 6. By April 9 and 10 however, the paper was reporting bluntly and

accurately the difficulty the Union forces had fending off the surprise attack of the Confederates

and the heavy casualties suffered by both sides. The Times also provided an accurate list of

generals killed and wounded, and had even learned of the death of Southern commander General

Albert Sydney Johnson. The only mistakes included in later reports were a high estimate of

Union troop strength (80,000 men as opposed the less than 70,000 on the field) and an incorrect

description of the Union counterattack. The overall situation was nonetheless correctly

represented. (NEW YORK TIMES)

In the summer of 1863 the Army of Virginia under General Robert E. Lee advanced northward

into the Union state of Pennsylvania The South was hopeful that their most powerful army, deep

inside Union territory, would be decisively victorious. The North watched anxiously as the

vaunted Confederates under Lee moved closer to major cities like Harrisburg and Philadelphia.

25

Moving quickly to meet him, the Union army under General George Meade collided with the

Confederates outside the small town of Gettysburg on July 1, 1863. After three days of bloody

fighting, the Union army prevailed and forced the Confederates to retreat, ending the battle

which is considered to be the turning point of the Civil War. (NATIONAL PARK SERVICE 3) The

illustrated magazine Harpers Weekly of New York City, like other newspapers and magazines

across the North and South, reported heavily on the battle.

Unlike earlier battles, the Northern reporting on Gettysburg was generally accurate. Harpers

provided an accurate description of the layout of the battlefield, and released correct descriptions

of the action and death of Union corps commander General John Reynolds on the first day of

battle. In its coverage of July 2, Harpers provided troops estimates for the two armies, claiming

that both armies had concentrated about 80,000 at Gettysburg, a decent estimation by the

standards of the day. (HARPERS WEEKLY) The Army of the Potomac is believed to have contained

about 95,000 soldiers during the Gettysburg campaign, and not all of them were concentrated at

Gettysburg on the second day of the battle. Confederate forces never numbered more than 75,000

troops. (THE EXTRAODINARY BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG) Harpers’ stated number is fairly close

for both armies, especially considering that Northern correspondents had no access of any kind

to the Confederate army.

Coverage broke down briefly when reporting on the events of July 2. Harpers reported that ‘little

infantry fighting” occurred and that neither “party made much impression on each other.”

(HARPERS WEEKLY) This was not the case. Late on July 2nd, the Confederate corps of General

James Longstreet assaulted the southern flank of the Union lines, devastating the entire Northern

army corps under General Dan Sickles and clawed its way to the top of a bitterly contested hill

called Little Round Top before being repulsed. This fighting was crucial to the outcome of the

battle, as the retention of Little Round Top saved the Union position. (NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

3) Harpers quickly redeemed itself with accurate reporting of both the Union and Confederate

actions on July 3, the day of Pickett’s Charge. It reported accurately that the Confederate

cannonade preceding the charge was “large and incessant” and that the Confederate dead

numbered in the hundreds (a low figure, but excusable given the chaos surrounding Pickett’s

charge). (HARPERS WEEKLY)

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Confederate reporters, far away from friendly telegram wires back to the South, had a difficult

time providing their newspapers with any information on Gettysburg. The “Press Association of

the Confederate States of America,” hereafter referred to as the “PA,” was a news cooperative

which provided articles to papers across the South. It was only able to have one reporter with the

Army of Northern Virginia at the time of Gettysburg. What little news that reached the South

was vague and Southern newspapers resorted to simply reprinted battle accounts published in

Northern papers in lieu of any useful PA reporting. (THE CONFEDERATE PRESS ASSOCIATION)

In December of 1862 the Union Army of Major General Ulysses S. Grant marched against the

Confederate Mississippi River stronghold at Vicksburg, Mississippi. In a masterful and

complicated campaign, Grant successfully besieged the city and forced the surrender of

Confederate Lieutenant General John Pemberton and his entire army. (NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

4) The Press Association of the Confederate States of America, while unable to effectively cover

the battle of Gettysburg, did provide almost daily dispatches from the beleaguered city of

Vicksburg. The dispatches from the city, however dutiful in their arrival across the South,

contained major factual errors. One PA dispatch claimed that the Confederate Army had killed

10,000 Union soldiers and captured 40,000 more in fighting around the city. (THE CONFEDERATE

PRESS ASSOCIATION) This absurd number, if true, would have constituted well over half of

Grant’s roughly 70,000 man army. Over the course of the entire eight month campaign to capture

Vicksburg, Grant lost slightly over 10,000 men. By the spring of 1863 the Southern soldiers and

civilians trapped within the Union cordon at Vicksburg had been reduced to near starvation.

(NATIONAL PARK SERVICE 4) During this time period the PA reported that “plentiful” foodstuffs

remained inside the city. The patently false content of PA articles led the editor of the Richmond

Examiner to describe it as "an unintelligible compound of gas, braggadocio, blunder, absurdity

and impossibility." (THE CONFEDERATE PRESS ASSOCIATION)

Northern coverage of the Vicksburg campaign proved to be more accurate than that provided by

the PA. Harpers Weekly provided coverage even more accurate and insightful than that

published during the Gettysburg campaign. The magazine published notably accurate reports of

the Battle of Black River Bridge (fought shortly before the siege of Vicksburg), claiming that the

Union army captured 2,000 Confederate prisoners and 13 artillery pieces. This number was very

close to the 1,700 prisoners taken by Union troops. (NATIONAL PARK SERVICE 4) It also provided

27

analysis of the battle which today conforms to that of major historians and books. It credited a

great deal of the Northern success to the efforts of Union corps commander McPherson, and

indeed, he is widely recognized to have been one of Grant’s most able generals. (HARPERS

WEEKLY)

This analysis presents some clear trends in news reporting as the Civil War progressed. In all the

battles examined, even the most prominent and distinguished of papers, both Northern and

Southern, were prone to making serious errors. It is worth noting that the most serious mistakes

in reporting were on events which took place in the evening: the Union route at Bull Run, The

Confederate halt at Shiloh, and the massive assault by Longstreet at Gettysburg all took place

late in the afternoon at a time when correspondents would be seeking to telegram already written

articles to their respective newspapers. This time constraint caused the omission or misreporting

of these important events. Accuracy clearly took the back seat to speed and earnings in reporting

on these battles. As time passed reports would get progressively more accurate. New York Times

reporting in the immediate aftermath of Shiloh was incomplete and lacked detail. After the

passage of a couple days, coverage became more complete. Harpers Weekly has the best track

record for accuracy of the papers examined. Again, time constraints, or lack thereof can help

explain this. As a weekly publication with no daily deadline, Harpers had ample time to compile

information and compose accurate war correspondence.

Correspondence on both sides also appears to have been inaccurate for reasons of bias and

patriotism. The Northern reporting on the battle of Bull Run was possibly tainted by a desire to

see the surrender of the Union garrison of Fort Sumter avenged. In the cases of Shiloh and

Vicksburg nothing other than blind optimism or a deliberate attempt to boast morale could

explain the mistakes of Southern newspapers. A third and final possible explanation for the

reporting errors could simply be the inexperience of green war reporters learning the tricks of the

trade the hard way. Regardless of the reason, and there are possibly more than this examination

revealed, war reporting during the American Civil War was not of high quality. Some

publications, such as Harpers Weekly, managed to print an accurate account of battles on a

regular basis. Of the five newspapers and press organizations examined here, only Harpers did

so. Glaring inaccuracies such as incorrect casualty figures, troop strength reports, and battle

28

outcomes were common in all the other cases. In the samples of war correspondence examined

here, accurate war reporting was the exception, not the rule during the American Civil War.

Works cited

Gettysburg.com. “The Extraordinary Story of the Battle of Gettysburg”

http://www.gettysburg.com/bog/bogstory/story1.htm

Harpers Weekly Magazine. June 20, July 2, 3, 4, 1863

Knightly, Phillip. The First Casualty. 2004 Edition. Baltimore and London: John Hopkins

University Press, 2004.

“The Mitchell Archives- Original historic newspapers.”

http://mitchellarchives.com/category/the-civil-war. 2008.

National Park Service

1- National Park Service. “Manassas Battlefield History.”

http://www.nps.gov/archive/mana/battlefield_history/camp1.htm

2- National Park Service. “Battle of Shiloh.”

http://www.nps.gov/shil/historyculture/shiloh-history.htm.

3- National Park Service. “The Gettysburg National Military Park Virtual Tour.”

http://www.nps.gov/archive/gett/getttour/main-ms.htm . March 18 , 2009

4- National Park Service. “Vicksburg."

https://sercms.nps.gov/vick/historyculture/index.htm . October 4 , 2006

The New York Times. http://proquest.umi.com.libproxy.albany.edu/pqdweb?

RQT=403&TS=1239669548&clientId=9718&cfc=1. June 20, 1861 and April 8, 9, 10, 1862.

Risley, Ford. “The Confederate Press Association: Cooperative News Reporting of the

War.” http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/filibusters/confederate-press.htm. September,

2001.

Extreme Claims Blur Philippine Election Automation Debate

29

October 25, 2009

The Commission on Elections plans to replace the Philippines’ century-old manual system of

voting with electronically automated machines has been described divergently as “A dream that

has become a reality” by the government and “A black hole of risks” by skeptics of the plan.

In accordance with Republic Act 9369 authorizing voting automation in the 2010 elections, the

Commission on Elections (COMELEC) approved a $7.3 billion peso order for 80,000 voting

machines from the consortium Smartmatic-Total Information Management. The automation

units (AUs), which were certified for use by the Supreme Court in September, digitally read and

count paper ballots inserted into them before transmitting the results to COMELEC officials

using landline, cellular, or satellite communications.

COMELEC officials have confidence in automation, bragging that it will run smoothly and

significantly reduce voting fraud.

"We expect everything to be fine," Comelec Chairman Jose Melo declared in September,

summarizing the COMELEC prediction for election automation.

Despite COMELEC assurances, fears have run high that the AUs will not be up to their task,

possibly failing or being corrupted on a large enough scale as to produce indeterminate or

fraudulent election results.

COMELEC’s portrayal of automation as a cure-all for the many ills of the Philippine electoral

system is exaggerated, as are dire predictions of failure voiced by some skeptics of the plan.

These respective claims blur the truth in the highly technical and procedural debate over

automation.

The most likely result of election automation in 2010 will be a modest decrease in voting fraud

and the amount of time necessary to compile election results, with neither problem being solved.

A complete failure of the election seems very unlikely.

COMELEC has steadfastly maintained that elections will not fail on a national level as a result of

broken AU’s. In September, COMELEC Chairmen Jose Melo clarified that any failure would be

30

on a local level - likely as a result of extenuating circumstances such as natural disasters or

terrorist attacks.

Multiple steps have been taken to ensure that dysfunctional AUs will not be the source of

election difficulties. AUs are equipped with batteries capable of providing power for twelve

hours in order to avoid their being rendered useless by power outages. Because of the rough

treatment the machines will endure on the dilapidated roads and rough terrain in rural voting

precincts, steps have been taken to provide extra AUs in case some break.

At the Automation Forum sponsored by the University of the Philippines National College of

Public Administration and Governance (NCPAG) earlier this month, COMELEC Commissioner

Sarmiento noted that 82,200 AUs have been ordered, but only 80,136 are slated to be deployed

initially. The remaining 2064 will be held in reserve to replace any machines which become

disabled during the course of shipment or voting.

Also, the machines have been tested in accordance with the “minimum system capability

standards” set forth by COMELEC’s and certified as adequate by the Supreme Court.

Pablo Manalastas, a computer programmer and Professor in the Ateneo De Manila University

Computer Science Department was an observer of the COMELEC Special Bids and Awards

Committee (SBAC) during the testing, and questions the quality of the COMELEC evaluation.

Malanastas has concerns that AU testers, who were primarily lay employees of COMELEC and

not software engineers with technological expertise, may have modified testing standards to

ensure that the machines passed.

“Little mods like this erode your faith in the correctness of the SBAC testing” Malanastas said.

However, he agrees that “There will be no failure of elections,” noting that the AUs can easily be

transformed into manual voting boxes, albeit expensive ones, should vote totals fail to be

transmitted electronically.

“The ballot box will be opened, and the votes counted manually,” Malanastas explained.

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“How this will be done within the context of allowable COMELEC regulations will still be

threshed out by COMELEC's implementing rules and regulations (IRRs)…” The IRRs are due to

be released later this year.

At the NCPAG forum, Commissioner Sarmiento argued that the speed of AU vote tabulation is a

necessary upgrade from the lengthy manual system which has been in place since the first

Philippine Assembly was elected in 1907.

In 2004 it took over a month for the manual system to provide the results of the Presidential and

Vice Presidential races, and in 2007 it took over two months to tabulate the results of the

Senatorial races.

COMELEC predicts that in the 2010 elections it will take just two days to count and canvass

election returns of national races with the use of AUs. This estimation is predicated on

automation occurring successfully in every voting precinct in the nation, a concept Prof

Manalastas finds unrealistic.

“With the destruction caused by Typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng to the schools, basketball courts

and other places that will be used for precincts in Metro Manila and Northern Luzon, I have

doubts that COMELEC will be able to do even 50% computerization of the entire country”

Manalastas said.

Even if a fraction of precincts are automated, the machines in use will increase the speed of

ballot counting over that of past elections. But it is implausible that COMELEC will be able to

compile elections results in just two days.

 Early this year COMELEC Legal Department Chief Ferdinand Rafanan boasted to reporters that

automation would practically eliminate election fraud, another unrealistic prediction. At most,

AUs will have a marginal impact on the widespread electoral fraud found in most Philippine

elections.

The paper ballots used by AUs are equipped with security features to combat forgery, but can

still be stolen and prefilled. Voters will be susceptible to coercion and can have their votes

bought regardless of the method of voting used.

32

Commissioner Sarmiento noted that “violence, intimidation, threats, shipping of ballots and

election paraphernalia” can occur “outside the system” of changes made by automation.

A televised September 21 edition of “ANC Presents: A 2010 Poll Automation Forum” provided

insight into the procedural intricacies of automation and the inability of AUs to eliminate fraud.

Members of the Forum panel, which included the Chairman of COMELEC’s Special Bids and

Awards Committee Ferdinand Rafanan and Smartmatic’s International Sales Director Cesar

Flores, discussed what steps had been taken to combat voting fraud. They highlighted the fact

that paper ballots will be manufactured for use in a specific precinct and machines will be

program to reject more ballots than there are registered voters in a precinct as a way of avoiding

ballot shipping and ballot stuffing.

However, un-purged voter rolls and ballots leftover from voter turnout below 100% ensure that

excess ballots will be available for potential cheating. Furthermore, the fill-in-the-bubble design

of the ballots unintentionally makes voting fraud harder to detect by eliminating signs of

cheating, such as handwriting samples and abnormal vote totals.

Mandatory digital fingerprint verification of voters has been proposed as a means of reducing

fraud and is intended to go into effect in the 2013 elections.

Fears of AUs being used to facilitate high tech fraud are also unrealistic. The Supreme Court

declared in a September court ruling that the electronic method of vote transmission is

sufficiently secure enough to prevent tampering.

COMELEC, which is staffed primarily by lawyers, not computer experts, has placed a great deal

of responsibility for the operation of the machines, and thus the election, with Smartmatic/TIM.

This has prompted criticism that COMELEC has outsourced responsibility to a foreign business

organization capable of being influenced and infiltrated by those seeking to manipulate the

election.

One allegation is the COMELEC officials have been careless with the fate of the AU “source

code;” the computer programming which will be installed into the AUs before the election

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The “source code,” in accordance with RA 9369, must be released by Smartmatic/TIM to

political parties and interested parties in order to be reviewed to ensure the AUs have been

programmed correctly.

However, the code has not yet been released, a point of great contention for those anxious to

review it. Manalastas has repeatedly called for the release of the source code.

“I believe that COMELEC must allow source code review now, while there is still time for

review, so that the public can see the conformance or non-conformance of the PCOS (AUs) to

RA-9369 and the COMELEC Terms of Reference (ToR),” he said.

Furthermore, Smartmatic/TIM will have significant authority over access keys and codes for the

AUs.

“This is bullshit, because it gives Smartmatic power to change all precinct election returns, then

re-sign them with the private keys (which they have) and pass this modified precinct election

return as if it was the original,” Manalastas contends.

Despite the serious impact the source code and access keys could have on the election, it should

be kept in mind that they are contractual, not technical issues. The AUs cannot be faulted if the

elections are to be fouled by those issues.

In many ways it seems that election automation may be an example of the cart being put before

the horse. However reliable the AUs may prove to be, procedural and criminal problems, or acts

of God such as Typhoon Ondoy, will alter the 2010 elections as they have Philippine elections of

the past. As long as a corrupt human element is involved with voting, the AUs will do little to

curb election fraud and speed up an accurate tally of vote totals.

34

Squatters and Decay Tarnish National University

October 5, 2009

The flagship campus of University of the Philippines, located in the Diliman neighborhood of

Quezon City, continues to struggle with burgeoning squatter settlements and poor maintenance a

year after its prominent centennial celebration. The woes of the government subsidized

university are attributed to systematic underfunding, neglect and the sensitive nature of the

squatter issue.

The University of the Philippines Diliman (UPD) consistently ranks among the best schools in

Asia and as the premier university in the country, beating out better funded private schools such

as cross-town rival Ateneo De Manila University (ADMU). It boasts alumni such as former

Presidents Ferdinand Marcos and Manuel Roxas, current Supreme Court Justice Reynato Puno,

and numerous celebrities.

However, the appearance of the school does not match its sterling academic reputation. Rats

scurry in the dimly light hallways of unmaintained buildings, trash litters the sides of pot-holed

marred streets, and tens of thousands of squatters inhabit crude shack settlements covering

dozens of campus acres.

According to a 2005 school report by Cecilla Ibay, more than 20,000 squatter families occupy 66

hectares, or 13%, of the UPD campus. Altogether, Ibay identifies fifteen different sectors of

squatter settlement.

Some decades-old areas of squatter development are so well established that they have

essentially become regular neighborhoods of Quezon City, complete with roads, gas stations,

electric grids, and sewage systems.

However, many squatters live amongst the undeveloped woods and creeks of the vast UPD

campus. From a distance, only the reflection of the sun off the aluminum roofs of the squatter’s

shacks betrays their presence. A closer look reveals settlements of hundreds living amongst the

greenery, complete with cement paths and basketball courts. Children, often naked or wearing

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just basketball jerseys, run laughing through the woods and splash around in the streams on hot

days, while their mothers wash clothes and hang them out to dry on clotheslines suspended

between trees.

The rent-free existence in the cool, shady woods of the UPD campus is certainly a boon for

squatters considering they are one of the poorest demographics in a very impoverished nation.

However, their presence is a major strain on the campus.

Squatters have been, and continue to be, a major obstruction to the development of university

facilities. Two areas of squatter settlement currently lie on land earmarked for the construction of

the new Commission on Higher Education headquarters and the Magsaysay Dormitory Complex.

Squatter settlements receive no access to running water, sewer pipes, or trash removal services.

As a result, the household and human waste they generate gets dumped in the fields and streams

of the campus. Cement bricks, tires and other refuse clutters the woods in the area along Pardo

De Tavera Avenue before its intersection with C.P. Garcia Avenue, just one example of the ill

effects of squatter dumping.

Rampant crime on campus is largely a result of the inability of the UPD’s security force to

control tens of thousands more people than it was intended to.

Among the areas of campus free from squatter settlement, problems abound for the University

nonetheless. Numerous infrastructure and maintenance deficiencies cry out for improvement.

A walk through the Faculty Center, a three-story structure built in 1968, reveals dingy walls,

dusty ceiling lights, a dysfunctional elevator converted into a storage closet, and unchanged trash

bins.

Outside the third floor office of Assistant Professor Gene Pilapil sits one such fragrant trash can

filled to the brim with snack wrappers, empty soda cans and topped off with a wrinkly brown

banana peel. An army of ants,f barely visible in the dim lighting, convey morsels of food from

the bin to a crack in the wall.

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Pilapil first enrolled at UPD in 1985 and graduated in 1990. After holding teaching jobs at the

UPD twice during the 1990s, he returned as a full time faculty member in 2004.

In sharp contrast to the hallway, Pilapil’s office was fresh and neat. In fact, he described it as

“great” for him. However it was Mr. Pilapil, not the university, who spruced up the office.

“My room is great because I have done the upgrade myself. It is the building (Faculty Center)

that is the problem. Once you step out of my room, it is a different world,” Mr. Pilapil explained.

“I am sure that someone with an eye to campus maintenance would be as appalled as I am on the

state of maintenance of the building for the faculty of its two biggest colleges,” Pilapil said,

referring to the College of Arts and Letters and the College of Social Sciences and Philosophy.

From Pilapil’s perspective, which he acknowledged was affected by his location at CAL, the

condition and appearance of the UPD campus has remained stagnated or even declined since his

time as a student.

The University Arcade and the UP San Fernando Diliman Extension Office are two more

examples of deteriorating infrastructure. A glance inside the shattered windows of the Arcade

reveals collapsing ceilings, filthy walls, and spongy floors littered with trash, dirt, and glass

shards. The building is such an eyesore that is frightens off students looking to go for a swim at

the adjacent University Pool. The dirty and weathered walls of the Extension Office look equally

decrepit.

The University Shopping Center is a favorite target of vandals on campus. Much of the graffiti

calls for the ouster of President Arroyo from office in response to her proposed amendments to

the 1987 Philippine Constitution.

Sagot sa krisis-Rebulyson! (Solution to the crisis-Revolution!)” declares one spray painted

slogan authored by student supporters of the “New People’s Army,” the militant wing of the

Communist Party of the Philippines.

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The UPD’s problems are particularly acute when compared to the nation’s other top schools. The

campuses of Far Eastern University, De La Salle University, and Ateneo De Manila University

are modern, well maintained, and have prevented the establishment of squatter settlements.

A comparison between the dormitories of UPD and rival neighbor ADMU highlight the neglect

at the former institution.

UPD has not constructed a new undergraduate dormitory since 1976 according to Pilapil, who

notes that the student population has since tripled. As a result, existing dorms are overcrowded

and battered from years of use. Most lack air conditioning, leaving the packed rooms unbearably

hot during the summer months. None of the dorms are equipped with internet or phone

connections.

In sharp contrast, ADMU’s Cervini Hall, built in 1968, boasts an adjacent swimming pool, air-

conditioned study rooms and, according to the ADMU website, “is the first dormitory in the

Philippines to provide room-to-room Internet access.”

In 2007 ADMU constructed a twin tower housing complex known as University Dormitory.

Standing seven stories tall and complete with a view of the Marikina Valley, the dorm is able to

accommodate over 600 students.

College of Mass Communications Professor Tessa Jazmines attended the UPD from 1964 to

1968, graduating with a degree in journalism. She was hired by the school as a researcher after

her graduation and has remained employed at her alma mater.

Jazmines became best acquainted with the student dorms during her tenure as Vice Chancellor

for Student Affairs (VCSA) from 1999 to 2005, the position responsible for dormitories.

Staff strives to maintain the dorms, but lack the resources to do all that is needed to ensure

proper upkeep according to Jazmines.

“They are still clean and respectable inside; that is, the staff makes do with available resources.

But some are in bad shape: roofs leak, windows are broken, the condition of the paint sucks,

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there is no water in some dorms, and a lot of bulbs have to be replaced.” Jazmines wrote in reply

to an inquiry about the condition of the UPD dormitories.

The reason for the sub-par appearance of the UPD campus seems clear to both Jazmines and

Pilapil.

“We do not have the resources,” Pilapil said, seconding the assessment made by Jazmines.

 The UP Vice President for finance and development Prof. Concepcion Alfiler went on record in

2008 as saying that the “erratic allocation” of funds by the national government left the UP

system short of funds.

“Whenever we have a small budget, the allocation for equipment, new school buildings and

special projects will suffer...” Alfiler said

The UP system received just an average of 60.2% of its proposed budgets between 2000 and

2008- funds which had to be split between the various campuses and the Philippine General

Hospital.

The 2008 budget was the most substantial increase in funds in the past decade, raising the budget

for the UP system over $6 billion pesos for the first time.

Even if the money situation improves, the University remains divided on how to deal with the

more complex issue of squatters. The school administration sees a need for their removal while

others, primarily student organizations, protest plans for their eviction on humanitarian grounds.

There is so little consensus that it remains unclear whether to describe “squatters” as such or to

use the politically correct phrase “informal settlers”

Even if there was a consensus to remove squatters from university land, the school would likely

lack the ability and resources to implement such a policy, Pilapil notes. Philippine law protects

squatters from outright eviction unless alternate housing is provided, a potentially prohibitive

expense for the University. The UPD already struggles with simply preventing the spread of

squatter settlement.

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“UP's land area is so huge, it's very difficult to monitor the informal structures that come up in

every nook and cranny of the campus.” Prof. Jazmines said.

While Pilapil has concerns with the physical integrity of the UPD, he is convinced that the

school remains academically dominant in the Philippines.

“As I have said, UP is still the best university in the country. No doubt about that,” Pilapil said.

Despite its shortcomings, the campus remains popular among students and faculty.

As a child Jazmines used to pass through campus often.

“We used to pass through UP to get to my high school and back then, I envied the students who

went to UP because it had a beautiful, sprawling campus,” Jazmines recalled. Her attitude hasn’t

changed.

“I love the sprawl of the campus, the trees, the Lagoon, the pocket gardens, the Academic Oval,

the fact that you can breathe (relatively) clean air and be yourself inside UP. I love the

Landmarks as well -- the Oblation, the Carillon, the Arboretum and the UP Chapel, in particular.

I love UP, period.” she said.

“I still think it's the best campus in Metro Manila. Or elsewhere.”

Despite lingering cash shortfalls and a persistent backlog of maintenance projects, efforts by UP

to improve the campus may be gaining traction.

“After the centennial celebration last year, UP as a whole and individual units in particular were

able to raise funds for their specific needs. So things are slowly getting better and better,”

Jazmines noted.

A score of building and maintenance projects are in the works for the campus. Projects include

reroofing, the installation of new jeepney stops, electrical re-wiring, and the construction of a

new Faculty Center.

Land threatened by squatters along Commonwealth Avenue has been turned into a seemingly

successful venture for the University in the form of the UP-Ayalaland Technohub, a land use

partnership between UP and the Ayala Corporation subsidiary Ayala Land.

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Such improvements, which allow UP to raise money and improve its image, could prove to be

the catalyst the university needs to rehabilitate its campus.

41

Dead Animals

April 1, 2010

For me, wintertime will forever be associated with dead animals. Between the ages of twelve and

sixteen I witnessed scores of animals executed, run down, chopped up, or killed by accidental

causes in the bitter cold of the long Maine winter.

The animal slaughter began in late 1999. In the spring of that year my family had purchased and

begun operating “Pine Grove Campground and Cottages,” a 20-acre plot of evergreens and

campsites situated on the east bank of the Penobscot River in central Maine. From our previous

home in Caribou, Maine we shipped our little army of critters: dog Hutch, two cats Lilly and

Remington, guinea pig Squeaky, and rabbit Truffles.

That summer our pets happily settled into their new home. Hutch had acres of woods to romp

around, a pond and river to swim in, and dozens of campers to mooch food off of. Truffles spent

his time bouncing around in a fenced-in enclosure munching on clovers and grass. Lilly and

Remington went to work massacring moles, mice and birds in the yard, often depositing them as

gifts on our doorstep. Little did they know only one of them would ever leave Pine Grove alive.

Truffles went first, a forbearance of events to come. In November, right before the first snows of

winter fell, he went permanently missing from his pen. A few days later we spotted a plump red

fox slinking around our house, no doubt digesting our big-eared friend.

Although not officially winter in November, it often feels like it is in Maine. Ice begins creeping

out from the riverbanks, spurred on by frigid wind gusting down the river valley. Snow blankets

the frozen ground and trees.  With that snow comes deer and moose hunters. My family had

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decided to keep the cabins open throughout the winter in order to accommodate hunters, and they

were soon filled with beer-guzzling, gun-toting men from across New England.

With the hunters came deer and moose carcasses. Suspended by their necks from trees scattered

around the campground, their stomachs were sliced open by the hunters so their blood and guts

could drain into buckets. In order to avoid attracting the attention of blood-thirsty coyotes, my

father asked me to take the buckets of entrails and toss them into the river. Skidding down the

icy riverbank to complete my task I fell backwards, spilling a bucket of deer blood all over my

face. My brother and sister thought this was hilarious, slapping their legs and laughing as they

watched from the top of the bank, but I didn’t find my first taste of the animal carnage enjoyable

at all - especially when it began freezing onto my face in the frigid wind.

By December the hunters and their trophies cleared out. The snow had deepened, and I took up

cross-country skiing. One day while making a new trail through an unexplored part of the

campground I spotted something in the distance. It was a big circle of feathers with a red stain in

the center, as if someone had hit a target with a down-filled hand grenade. Shuffling closer on

my skis, the body of an elusive Horned Owl became visible, pushed down into the snow face-up

and covered with blood. No doubt formerly a handsome bird, the owl’s stomach had been picked

clean by some creature. Saddened by the regal bird’s demise, I covered his body with snow to

serve as a makeshift grave.

A few weeks after I discovered the owl, our dog Hutch went missing. Put outside to relieve

himself after dinner, he never returned home. He was an old dog, and we assumed he went off

into the forest to die.

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Eventually spring of 2000 came, and the melting snow revealed the fenced-in area formerly

inhabited by Truffles. Our rabbit was badly missed, so Dad surprised us by returning home with

two young bunnies to replace him. As the grass became green and the days warmed, my sister

decided she wanted a dog to play with. She went to the shelter and returned with a sweet but

unintelligent Husky named Keyta. Like our previous pets, these new family members loved their

new home.

With the return of November returned the fatalities. One my way out to do some chores one

frosty day, I spotted our two rabbits lying motionless on their sides. I moved closer, only to

confirm that their still bodies were lifeless and stiff. They had a warm, straw-filled house in their

pen, and the weather was not yet cold enough to have affected them. Oddly, they bore no marks

or injuries. Their demise remains a mystery, creepily similar to deaths in a Stephen King novel or

alien movie.

Just a few weeks later tragedy befell Keyta. She was a comically stupid animal, prone to stealing

and devouring loafs of breads still inside of plastic bags and accidently bumping her head into

walls. One night my sister let her outside to relieve herself. She didn’t return that night, and the

next day we formed a search party to go look for her. We didn’t have to go far. On the river in

front of our house we discovered a set of tracks on the thin, snow-dusted ice leading outward to a

dog sized hole in the center. There was no set of return tracks.

In January, Emily discovered Squeaky dead in his cage. Unable to bury him in the frozen earth

we ordered my then 5-year-old brother Nicolas to stash him on a shelf in an abandoned outhouse

until he could be properly buried in the spring. Misunderstanding our instructions, Nicolas tossed

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Squeaky straight into the pit of the outhouse where he became encased in a grave of frozen

human fecal material.

In the summer of 2001 Dad decided it would be wise to upgrade to sturdier pets. Over the course

of the summer we acquired two black sheep named Blackberry and Clover from an aging farmer,

a goat named Goat from our plumber, and a hideous grey Vietnamese pot belly pig named Molly

from a woman who wanted to discard it after it grew from a cute piglet to a full-sized hog.

The first causality of that winter was not one of our own animals.  My mother, who worked the

nightshift as a phlebotomist to supplement our income, often carpooled to her hospital with a

friend and coworker named Denise. Denise loved to speed down even the most windy and rural

of roads in her sporty Ford Mustang. Racing down our street to pick up my mother one night,

Denise took a corner too fast, crashing into a deer standing in the road. Denise and her car were

relatively unscathed, but she could tell the deer had suffered a broken leg as it hobbled into the

woods.

Eating road kill is both common and socially acceptable in Maine. If the driver of a vehicle is

killed in the accident, the offending deer or moose that caused the collision is butchered and sent

to food pantries or homeless shelters.

My Dad decided he wanted to eat this deer, so the next day the two of us drove to the scene of

the accident. We got out of the car and followed the deer tracks into the woods. We knew we

were following the right tracks, as there were only three hoof prints. Sure enough we found the

deer about a half mile into the woods, dead from shock. We tied ropes to his legs and dragged

him through the snow to our house. Upon reaching home we realized we lacked the proper tools

to butcher the deer. Always a practical man, my father decided a chain saw would suffice. I had

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my doubts about the idea, but Dad proved me wrong. The saw blade ripped pieces of deer flesh

and fur off the carcass, spitting them backwards in a spray of blood all over my father as it

shattered through the animal’s bones, tendons and meat. As grisly as our chainsaw butchering

method was, it ultimately proved quite effective in removing the limbs of the deer. Soon the deer

was scattered about the yard in eight jagged pieces. We carved the flesh off the deer chunks with

our sharpest kitchen knives, packed it up in Ziploc bags, and stashed it in our outdoor icebox.

Ultimately, most of the deer meat and hard work went to waste. We decided to save the meat and

prepare it at Christmas time in honor of our visiting relatives. With our hungry family assembled

around the dinner table on Christmas Eve, Dad announced that he had improperly prepared the

meat, leaving it gamey and tasteless to the point of being inedible. We attempted to salvage the

venison by adding it to a hastily cooked stew. However, I over-boiled the noodles intended for

that dish, and the resulting combination was a mushy and bland slop interspersed with leathery

meat chunks. After twenty minutes spent choking down spoonfuls of the stew, we broke down

and cooked two Red Baron frozen pizzas as an impromptu Christmas dinner.

In January our cat Remington became very ill. Named after Remington Steele, the television

character played by my mother’s crush Pierce Brosnan, “Remmy” was 19-years-old.  Mom,

whom Remington loved more than anyone else, doted on him for days. She placed him in a

laundry basket lined with blankets and pillows and parked him near our woodstove to make

certain he was warm. There he stayed for three days, often purring so loudly he could be heard in

adjacent rooms.  On the fourth day his purring stopped, and only my cat, Lilly, was left alive

from our original batch of pets.

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In the summer of 2002 we added a dog, Bailey, to our family. Blackberry, Clover, Molly, and

Goat continued their happy lifestyle in and around our barn.

The winter of 2002 started with a close call for Molly and an attempted murder of Goat. After a

few months of trying to keep Goat out of trouble I had grown to hate her more than any other

animal I have ever known - she hated me right back. She spent her time harassing campers,

fighting with their dogs, and even tried chewing on a one-legged woman’s prosthetic leg. When

campers would complain about the trouble she was causing, I would hunt her down and drag her

back to the barn. My attempts to train her were typically responded to with head butts. When I

would coax her near to give her a treat she would often squat and urinate before running off, her

snack untouched.  While it may sound paranoid, I am convinced to this day this action was a

deliberate and conscious snub. Furthermore, she was tough. Goat loved to munch on cigarette

butts she found lying on the ground, and one time I even saw her eat a fish hook to no ill effect. 

That December Goat began a daily ritual of knocking over our trash can and spreading the

garbage across the front yard. I was tasked with pulling the frozen trash out of the icy mud that

was our yard and returning it to the can each day. After a morning spent prying the skeleton of a

rotisserie chicken out of the ice - compliments of Goat - I decided I had to take action. I swore to

kill Goat. 

The next morning I found the trash once again ripped open and strewn across the lawn. I didn’t

clean it up, but instead found a cat food can and filled it with toxic anti-freeze. I placed it among

the trash and crept behind a nearby wood pile. After a few minutes Goat came wandering out

from her home behind the barn and came over to re-inspect the trash. Her nose shaking and

sniffing, she quickly zeroed in on the sugary sweet anti-freeze. Right before she began lapping it

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up I rushed out from behind the pile and spilled out the anti-freeze. I am glad I didn’t go through

with this cruel and juvenile plan, regardless of how much I hated Goat.

A week later Molly was almost eaten by coyotes. She broke out of the barn one night, only to be

cornered by three of them outside her pen. Hearing her oinks of fear from my bedroom, I ran

outside and chased them away before they started chomping on her.

2002 had been a slow business year for us, and by January of 2003 my family was seeking ways

to cut our shopping bills. We had a Sam’s Club membership, but even buying in bulk wasn’t

enough to ease our tight budget. Eventually Dad, a lover of mutton and lamb chops, realized that

we had those choice meats in bulk right across the yard in our barn. One day he returned from

Sam’s Club with a jumbo can of mint jelly and announced his intentions to dispatch Blackberry

and Clover. There were no objections to this plan, as Blackberry and Clover’s lofty and

unfriendly personalities had failed to win them any friends in the family.

Nick and Emily fetched the sheep from their pen and tied them to a tree in the yard. Dad loaded

two shells into his shotgun and I gassed up the chainsaw. Call me a sissy, but I didn’t want to see

the sheep shot in the head. As Dad leveled his gun at the face of Blackberry I snuck away to the

opposite side of the house. I waited for the first shotgun blast, and then the second. Only when I

heard the revving of the chainsaw did I return to the scene of the butchering. Dad, coated with

sheep blood and wool, had already sawed one of Blackberry’s legs off, and I went to work

carving meat off it. Three hours later only a red splotch of snow, a bag of wool, and an icebox

full of mutton remained of Blackberry and Clover.

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We ended up enjoying many delicious meals thanks to Blackberry and Clover.  They brought the

string of animal deaths to an end on a high note. Thanks to their contribution to my family I can

take comforting in knowing that all the animals did not die in vain.